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Beelzebub1111
2012-03-14, 07:49 PM
The title should be self-explanitory: What is the oddest or strangest encounter/adventure you've had in any game.

The strangest encounter for me was in a Vampire game (oWoD) where we had to find a vampire who went missing. Turns out he was abducted...BY ALIENS! not just any aliens, these were Greys. In flying saucers. With ray-guns. It was a bizarre thing. And part of me wonders what would have happened if we drank their blood (We decided it would be a bad idea)

Atcote
2012-03-14, 10:01 PM
We once went up against a red dragon.
It was fierce. It was mad. It was powerful.
For the past 48-hours it had been tearing up the country-side, and left two guard outposts destroyed despite a peace-treaty with the neighbouring village. It had never before shown an inclination towards evil, but over this past little while, it had grown mad and animalistic.
We had readied our weapons, protected ourselves against fire, and cast our buffs. We charged in...
And spent about 20 skill checks and a trip back to town to find a small army in order to help it give birth. The army was mostly midwives.

It was the most disorienting thing I've yet to play, purely because it felt like such a standard situation that we were sure was going to be horribly subverted... And instead ended with us being rewarded with a baby dragon's egg shell.
It came in useful later.
I'm told the baby dragons were very cute.

Starscream
2012-03-15, 12:12 AM
Had a couple of weird ones.

* A demonic pastry chef. He desperately wanted to be a good cook, but his essential sadistic nature got in the way, causing him to use all sorts of gross body parts and such in his confections. He'd catch people, force feed them his food until they died from a combination of overeating and poison from the disgusting ingredients, and then bake their remains into deadly Gingerbread Golems. The golems were killed when we knocked them into a giant vat of milk (the only thing to bypass their regeneration), and the chef himself perished in an oven Hansel & Gretel style.

* A giant half dragon scorpion. Not a strange encounter by itself, what was weird is how we "beat" it. It killed one of our characters in round 1, so we fled. One of the few things we did to it before deciding to cheese it was that the party warlock attacked it with a swarm of bats. They did a piddling amount of damage...plus Wounding. Because the scorpion was mindless it could not perform a heal check to stop the bleeding. We cowered behind a door while it lost 1 hp per round until it dropped dead. Complete accident, we had no idea that would happen.

* This was a (very strange) GURPS game. We were all playing various famous fictional characters (I was Lupin III), and so most of our enemies were well known as well. At one point we killed Peter Pan, who was a much bigger jackass than the Disney version (closer to his book counterpart but worse). He was sort of an Avatar of Neverland; the place existed because he believed it did, and the more children he abducted into his "Lost Boys", the more Neverland grew because they believed in it too. It was spreading fast and would soon absorb the whole world (a very bad thing), so we joined Captain Hook's crew to take him down.

But Hook was just as bad as Peter, and we eventually figured out that it was because they were somehow the same person. Hook was not a real individual, he actually represented what Peter would have become had he ever grown up (or what he thought he'd be if he grew up, or something). So Hook was creating Neverland with his mind as well, and both he and Peter had to die at the same time, of they'd just keep recreating each other. We got them to fight each other, and then sicced the crocodile who ate Hook's hand on them both.

Grinner
2012-03-15, 01:17 AM
This was a (very strange) GURPS game. We were all playing various famous fictional characters (I was Lupin III), and so most of our enemies were well known as well. At one point we killed Peter Pan, who was a much bigger jackass than the Disney version (closer to his book counterpart but worse). He was sort of an Avatar of Neverland; the place existed because he believed it did, and the more children he abducted into his "Lost Boys", the more Neverland grew because they believed in it too. It was spreading fast and would soon absorb the whole world (a very bad thing), so we joined Captain Hook's crew to take him down.

But Hook was just as bad as Peter, and we eventually figured out that it was because they were somehow the same person. Hook was not a real individual, he actually represented what Peter would have become had he ever grown up (or what he thought he'd be if he grew up, or something). So Hook was creating Neverland with his mind as well, and both he and Peter had to die at the same time, of they'd just keep recreating each other. We got them to fight each other, and then sicced the crocodile who ate Hook's hand on them both.

...Are you sure you weren't playing Changeling...?

Beelzebub1111
2012-03-15, 01:38 AM
I'm told the baby dragons were very cute.
Ironically only the chromatic ones. Look in the Draconomicon. The blue ones are just SO ADOWABOL

Kol Korran
2012-03-15, 02:40 AM
mine are not as weird (i think) but might be interesting as well. some are from a campaign i ran, while another is from a game i played in.

I'll start with the game i played in:
1) funny?
it was some sort of magical apocalypse where weird s**t continuously happened (we just fought a wheel of hands with a sac in the middle in which it kept stuff to throw at us). on the road some where we saw a cart, quite large with several men on it and quite a few children. a small conversation broke in which we learned these were entertainers, and they wanted to do a show for us.

at which point one of the "entertainers" shoved his hand through one of the children's spines and started to puppeteer him! others started marionating the kids and so on. "isn't this funny? why don't you laugh?" they said in a voice reminiscent of a certain joker we all know.

the fight was weried, as they had attacks that made us laugh (and we were told to play that) or feel guilty, or sad (this was the horses effect) and we fought these clowns and their "dolls". a near TPK that was. with a weird sense of humor.

from the campaign i ran:
2) The Seller:
the party slept in the Mournland (Eberron's land of bizzare things) and woke to find they are in some kind of a circus tent. a strange freaky part goblin, part gnome, part kobold, part freak creature whined "they're awake!" and skittered away.

a large menacing ogre mage approached, but dressed like a fine gentleman, (monocole included) he explained he has been searching for the party to make a deal- he would like to offer them the powers of various creatures, in return for a bit of "their heroic essence". the little freaks prepared a meal while this was happening.

the party were very suspicious, and haggled with this "Seller". they learned what the exchange would entail- they will exchange one of their organs with an organ of the creature in question. in a quite painful manner (i got salves to ease the pain though) and then the "essence" will be taken. (the essence is Eberron's action points. a small amount).

after quite a bit more haggling (for info as well) and quite a few doubts they decided to try. there were about 7-8 creatures (i can't remember exactly).
- the influential mage kissed the dying succubus, had her tongue ripped out and trade places with the demon's tongue for more persuasion power.
- the half giant psi war held hands with a petrified stoen giant, and had their skin exchange places for more durabilty.
- the aasimar cleric hugged a dying angel, ripped their chest and had their heart exchanged, before sending it back to the heavens.
and the cowardly duskblades had patches of a displacer beast skin exchange his own (he did use a LOT of the salve) for her displacing powers.

"i shall meet you again" promised the seller, and the party was weary the rest of the campaign.

3) "you're it!"
still in the mournland, the party escaped a dire situation by going to a sort of a pseudo dimension which was composed of memories of different people one of the campaign villains was collecting. this was a sort of a "maze of personalities" with certain objects in each memory as the exits to other memories. there were also Quori and specific special encoutners in this but that matters less.

the thing is- once in a memory one of the characters would assume the personality of the one to whom the memory belongs to (a royal cook, a paladin on a mission, an explorer of ruins, an opera performer and more) in a specific memory (i made a few "scenes" for each). this character would be completely "in the moment", actually being that character. the other PCs would take roles of other people in the scene, but they knew who they were. but they had to keep some kind of reasonable pretense while people searched for the "exits" or the memory will shatter and throw them randomly across the personality maze.

it was part success (many of the players had a hoot playing this, confusing as it was) part failure (they didn't quite figure out how to navigate the strange scene, and got hopelessly lost). but with more clarification i think it could work better.

more ideas might come up later, a bit too tired now. this is an interesting thread.

Starscream
2012-03-15, 07:22 AM
...Are you sure you weren't playing Changeling...?

It was GURPS, but if the GM based that story on something else (other than just, y'know, Peter Pan), I'm unaware of it.

Werekat
2012-03-15, 08:26 AM
One time, we had a D&D game, in which our party went into a zone that was essentially an anomaly. This meant that for every spell or supernatural ability used, there was a 40% chance that we would roll for an effect on the... Psychic phenomena table from WH40K, as the DM thought that D&D wild magic was way too boring.

My character, a wizard who, er, worshipped Boccob and occasionally got a response despite all odds, used a prestidigitation spell. We rolled, and moved on to the 'perils of the warp' table. This was just before the final fight.

The final fight was a classic jRPG boss fight, a huge worm-construct manned by an arch-nemesis of ours. The fight was to have three stages: destroy the first part of the worm, the second part, and then find and kill the arch-nemesis himself. The fight only had two, because the nemesis was also rolling on the perils of the warp table... And just before the final blow to his construct, he accidentally exchanged minds with its primitive proto-mind.

So our nemesis died while being locked in the body of a huge mecha worm.

Hunter Noventa
2012-03-16, 10:47 AM
We still haven't topped the weirdness that was the end of our brief Mutants and Masterminds campaign where Evil Mecha Lincoln rose from the depths of the St Lawrence River, and we had to stop him by grabbing the five robots dropped from the Moon to combine like Voltron into Mecha John Wilkes Booth and shoot the werewolf out of our giant revolver at Evil Mecha Lincoln.

The amount of laughter was legendary, but I don't think anyone present will ever forget that day.

kieza
2012-03-16, 07:35 PM
A couple that I ran:

A mad scientist (a la Sparks from Girl Genius), in his laboratory. The room was filled with things that went horribly wrong if they took any sort of damage. At the low end of the scale, you had alchemical apparatus that blew up and showered you with alchemist's fire, etc. Then, there was the shelf full of miniature automata that activated and swarmed you if you disturbed them, and the biological mishmash occupying a pit in the center of the room. And at the high end of the scale there was the coffeemaker, which exploded and sprayed the paladin with coffee, giving him a contact high which resulted in an addition lasting the rest of the campaign.

In another campaign, I had a series of, not exactly strange, but over-the-top encounters with a steampunk church militant. It started with a choir of airdropped steam golems armed with flamethrowers that ran on holy oil, and ended with a bishop in steam-engine power armor containing a backpack-mounted weaponized pipe organ.

EDIT: Oh, and then there was the demonic invasion in which an ex-marine sniper turned preacher and exorcist beat a demon to death with an entrenching shovel.

Pokonic
2012-03-18, 12:58 PM
A tiny Awakened lizerd with bard levels. It sang and danced all over the PC's who could not hit it at all. Thats not the weird part.

The wierd part was that the encounter took place in a gigantic room that a wizerd formerly owned, and the whole maze-like encounter had puddles of mixed magical goop that did nasty things to anything that stepped in it. The fighter stepped in a nice-sized puddle of goop that was effectivily liquid Warp Touch. His skin turned yellow and his legs became birdlike. The wizerd grew horns while the rouge effectivly became a half-dragon, while the druid was changed into a humanoid bear due to shenaigens. The lizerd itself was immune to the stuff, and the encounter ended when a PC flooded the place and the little guy excaped. Still is a fav

Saph
2012-03-18, 02:12 PM
The tale of the Apocalypse Demon Kitten Of DOOM! (Originally posted way back in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60593) thread.)


This happened in our last session. I remember someone started up a 'How deadly can you make a kitten?' thread a while ago, so I thought they'd find this funny. :)

We ran into two Apocalypse Demon Unicorns - basically this monster (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20061219a) modified for Forgotten Realms D&D. They could hide in plain sight and did chaotic and evil damage on a hit to any character who was lawful and/or good. The shadowdancer gets skewered and nearly killed - that's okay, all in a day's work for us. The fighters roll forward into melee and take one down. I hit the other with a baleful polymorph. It fails its save. I turn it into a kitten. (My character likes kittens.)

As it turned out, this was a mistake.

The creature keeps its template and special abilities, so now it's an Apocalypse Demon Kitten. It jumps on the nearest character and starts clawing him. Its claws do almost nothing but it's still got its chaos- and evil-aligned damage and all of a sudden it starts rolling nothing but 19s and 20s on its attacks. Everyone else tries to hit it but since it's so small, it gets cover from whoever it's attacking and it also now has an enormous AC, meaning the fighters keep hitting each other instead. Meanwhile the kitten's jumping from one person to another, hitting with every attack.

We imagined it as being a lot like the Killer Rabbit Scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The party's HP got so low that we were seriously considering running away and trying to take it out with ranged attacks, but it was pointed out that if we ran away we'd never live it down. Finally the fighter managed to kill it with his axe and we all sighed in relief.

The DM mentioned that it was a good thing no-one had died, because there was no way the gods would agree to resurrect anyone killed by a kitten.

I think next time I use baleful polymorph I'll pick something less dangerous.

Jay R
2012-03-18, 02:23 PM
I was playing a priest of Pan. (This was a long time ago, late 1970s or early 1980s),when Gods, Demigods and Heroes had first came out, and rules for gods were new and incomplete.)

We were on a ship crossing an ocean, and were beset by pirates. After several rounds, we were clearly about to lose, and I prayed for divine intervention. This was a high-risk, high-gain venture, as the DM played it.

The DM pointed out that Pan was a forest god, and would never manifest in the ocean. I pointed out to him that Pan did in fact have an form known for fighting pirates - a form that was clearly a nature god, who had godlike powers, who was in fact named Pan, who played Pan pipes, and who undeniably fought pirates. He looked confused until I explained.

He realized I was right, I rolled well enough to succeed, and suddenly Peter Pan appeared to sink the pirates.

The Pressman
2012-03-28, 04:22 AM
Probably would be this one encounter that was not strange in its setup, but in the way it turned out.

So the DM was just running a module, already pretty standard, and we attack some goblins in a back room of a tunnel complex. Then, they activate a trap which releases a cloud of flour into the room, theoretically blinding us.

I just so happened to have a Produce Flame prepared, so I tossed that into the cloud. The DM and the Party okayed it beforehand.

BOOM.

Almost all of the goblins die, most of the treasure also burns, and everyone suffers minor injuries. At the end, our last enemy remaining is a dire weasel that is currently on fire. We dispatch it.

Somewhat surprisingly, and luckily, everyone thought it was pretty cool and no one got pissed over losing treasure.

Panda24
2012-03-28, 05:11 AM
We were all gathered at our current employers house after a long day of running away from tsunamis, when we opted to simply help him cook dinner for a large group of children rescued from a nearby school.

So we're all cooking soup in the kitchen. Then, the rogue decides to roll initiative...

He attacks a cucumber and rolls a natural 20. And another. I suggest we roll on our custom critical effects table, simply because two 20's are just too awesome.

After first disorienting the cucumber by quickly slashing at with his dagger, the rogue pushes it back on to its heels and proceeds to carve his initials into its skin. The cucumber, after failing a will save and suffering 9 damage, runs away in fear.

Jan Mattys
2012-03-28, 08:35 AM
We were all gathered at our current employers house after a long day of running away from tsunamis, when we opted to simply help him cook dinner for a large group of children rescued from a nearby school.

So we're all cooking soup in the kitchen. Then, the rogue decides to roll initiative...

He attacks a cucumber and rolls a natural 20. And another. I suggest we roll on our custom critical effects table, simply because two 20's are just too awesome.

After first disorienting the cucumber by quickly slashing at with his dagger, the rogue pushes it back on to its heels and proceeds to carve his initials into its skin. The cucumber, after failing a will save and suffering 9 damage, runs away in fear.

I lol'd
:smallbiggrin:

Vknight
2012-03-28, 08:58 AM
The Bank Break; Mutants & Masterminds
Simple enough encounter. 6Armed Thugs, 2With Medium Pistols no other armor, Two in heavy combat armor and machine pistols, 1with some light body armor and a shotgun, and 1with a Magnum and Kevlar reinforced suit.
They had attacked the bank and the party of heros had to stop them.

And well it went weird. Are plant user carried around a potted plant and used it to entangle one.
The Ice User blasted into the place and at the men.
The Light User blinded most of them
and finally the 'Angel' came in, and attacked... the battle's dynamic changed at that moment.
From accidentally freezing the plant user with his time stop ability. To using his spin power(which involved a sword) to knock out the Ice User. By the end of the fight the bank was totaled. Most of the robbers were in critical condition.
And the Angel was fighting the guy in a suit in melee in this epic duel.

The guy in the suit was a PL3 guy, with a gun some equipment, various skills, and a average attack bonus. The party was PL8.
Eventually the guy escaped using a sewer lid as a Frisbee, then shooting it towards the angel.
I still don't know how this all came to be but it happened I can say that

Beelzebub1111
2012-03-28, 04:14 PM
Ah M&M, It's always the guy that tries to be super cool and powerful and 'original' that messes everything up.

Vknight
2012-03-29, 10:37 AM
You can say that twice.
He had additional limbs, high strength, actual super strength, healing, light powers, flight, 2ranks of protection, attractive 2(if not 3), summon weapon(2swords, 1bow, and something else).
All in all his points were so spread out his only career option was being a male model. That or be the jock for a football team.
His bonus to hit was +2(3) at max. His best thing was his 17Defense